The six essays collected in this volume are a selection from a number of papers which were given at a one-day colloquium on 'Art, Literature and the Spanish Civil War' which was held in Westfield College on 18 July 1986, precisely fifty years to the day after Franco's military coup in the Canary Islands, which was destined to have such a decisive effect on the course of Spanish history. Though this date subsequently became a Francoist celebration - the so-called 'Dia del Alzamiento' (Day of the Uprising) - the papers collected here do not demonstrate a Francoist bias. The overall approach is...

This book offers a radical re-evaluation of Lope's theatre, which will affect the way in which the comedia in general is read. It spans Lope's literary career, discussing (pseudo-)historical, tragic and peasant plays in order to show Lope's texts as complex negotiations between author and public, between conservatism and subversion, between representations of the ideal of kingship and its political reality, in a period of social and political change. Drawing on contemporary Spanish political philosophy, McKendrick shows that far from glorifying monarchy and advocating absolutism (the orthodox...

This book is the only one of its kind in English. Part literary history, part literary criticism, it is above all a personal assessment of a rich and important body of work which is still not widely known outside Catalonia. Catalan literature, one of the three major Peninsular literatures, reached an impressive level of excellence in the middle ages, beginning with Ramon Llull and the chronicles, and culminating in the two great fifteenth-century writers, the poet Ausias March and Joanot Martorell, the author of Tirant lo Blanc, one of the landmarks in early prose fiction. After three...

Latin American cinema has seen major developments in the past half-century, and some of the most exciting work in contemporary film now originates there. This Companion traces its development from the mid 1890s, with particular attention to the early period when it was dominated by foreign film makers (or foreign models such as Hollywood), through the 1960s when as a genre it found its feet - the New Latin American Cinema movement - and beyond. Detailed analysis of the best twenty-five films of Latin America follows: cast and crew, awards, plots, themes and techniques. The 'Guide to Further...

La obra poetica de Lope de Vega se diferencia del resto de la produccion del Siglo de Oro por una insistente singularidad: escenas y figuras de la vida del autor aparecen frecuentemente en sus poemas. La critica y el publico general ha respondido a esta caracteristica desde una perspectiva post-romantica, considerando que Lope escribio con sinceridad e inspiracion biografica, impulsado por su apasionada vida personal. En este libro se analiza lo que los post-romanticos consideran -sinceridad- como un recurso literario. Lope consigue una apariencia de sinceridad pero, de hecho, reaccionaba a...

Dr Ferrer Valls studies the relationship between court festivity and theatre in the sixteenth century, placing special emphasis on staging. She argues that throughout the reign of Philip II court spectacle perpetuates the complicated staging of traditional performances, but with greater emphasis on their dramatic aspects and on the use of music and song. In the first two decades of the seventeenth century, and above all in specific plays by Lope de Vega, court spectacles come to reflect also the influence of Italian staging techniques.